Science: Big Burn

Astronomers take the atomic bomb in stride. They know there are more
terrible ways in which this planet might be destroyed. Last week
Astronomer Robert Coles of the Hayden Planetarium summed up, in Sky and
Telescope the latest "astronomical facts concerning the end of
the world": About a ton of pulverized meteorites fall on the
earth's surface each day, do no damage. But, points out Coles, the
famed 1908 meteorite that fell in northern Siberia showed what a
meteor could do. It knocked forests flat for 30 miles, blew a man off
his doorstep 50 miles away. Its roar was heard...